Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Political Background To Iraq’s Current Descent Into Violence

Iraq's insurgency is making a comeback. The number of attacks and deaths has gone up dramatically this year with almost weekly mass casualty bombings. The security forces have proven incapable of preventing any of these operations. The April 2013 raid upon the Hawija protest site in Tamim province is widely regarded as the spark that ignited the current unrest. There were larger political issues however, dating back several years, which led to the current deterioration in security.

2010 marked the breakdown of
Iraq’s fragile post-sectarian war politics. In 2008, Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki went after Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, the insurgency, and
confronted the Kurds in Diyala. He also accepted the Anbar Awakening as an
indigenous Iraqi group, and was forced to take on the Sons of Iraq put
together by the Americans. Then in 2009, the prime minister broke with the
United Iraqi Alliance, the umbrella Shiite list, and formed his own State of
Law for that year’s provincial elections. That vote was a game changer as well
as Sunnis decided to participate in large numbers including some insurgent
groups, after boycotting in 2005. All together, these events helped change
the image of the government. The premier was no longer seen as a sectarian
Shiite leader, but an Arab nationalist one. The government appeared willing to
accept Sunnis into the security forces, and the 2009 elections showed that the
community could gain positions of power, and have their voices heard. In the
2010 parliamentary vote that all came apart as the main topic became whether
candidates mostly from Sunni and secular parties, should be banned for their alleged ties to the Baath Party. Not wanting to be outdone by his Shiite
rivals, Maliki took up this cause as well. When the final election results were
released, the prime minister came in second to the Iraqi National Movement
(INM) led by Iyad Allawi. The premier called foul, and got the courts to rule
that it wasn’t the list with the most votes that could form the new government,
but who could form the largest coalition afterward. The prime minister then
outmaneuvered Allawi, and formed a new government based upon the Irbil power
sharing agreement, which he promptly ignored. That was only possible because
the Sunni and Kurdish parties gave up their objections to Maliki in return for ministries
in the new administration. Sunnis took this as an affront to their votes and
choices. It appeared to them that the National Movement should have formed the
government, but instead Maliki manipulated the system to stay in power. Not
only that, but the leaders the Sunnis voted for like Iyad Allawi appeared weak.
In just two years, Sunnis went from feeling like Baghdad was less sectarian,
and they could find a place in the new order, to the government being
controlled by Shiites, and their ballots not counting. That was the beginning
of the post civil war politics starting to unravel.

The 2011 U.S. military withdrawal
undermined the security situation. The Americans wanted to maintain an advisory
force, but the nationalist mood in Baghdad, meant the parliament was unwilling
to grant them that. A small U.S. contingent could have only done so much anyway.
What was more important was that the Iraqis lost the American intelligence
capabilities, (1) their patrolling of the border, and their oversight of the logistics system for the Iraqi security forces (ISF). The U.S. released thousands of prisoners as well who could not be held or charged by the Iraqi
courts. Many of these detainees rejoined the insurgency. Finally, the
Iraqi forces stopped conducting counterinsurgency operations, and became more
concerned with becoming a traditional military force with tanks and jet
fighters. As a result, they no longer manned neighborhood combat posts,
preferring to stay in large bases instead. They then resorted to raids and mass
arrests to deal with militants, just as the Americans had unsuccessfully done
before the Surge. That meant when the insurgency started making a comeback in
late 2012, the ISF was not only unprepared to deal with them, but made the
situation worse with their repressive tactics. Many Sunnis came to believe that
the security forces were an arm of the Shiite led government, targeting
them specifically for sectarian reasons. Stories of secret prisons and the well-known
abuse of prisoners further alienated Sunnis from the authorities.

By the end of 2011, this anger was
at a boiling point. First, a deBaathification drive by Baghdad along with
general neglect of the provinces by the central government led places like
Anbar, Diyala, and Salahaddin to consider forming federal regions. Maliki
stamped out this drive by ignoring their requests, and then using carrots and
sticks to threaten and cajole the local councils. Then in December 2012, the
prime minister had arrest warrants issued for several bodyguards of then
Finance Minister Rafi Issawi. Unlike Vice President Tariq Hashemi who went
through a similar process a year earlier, Issawi had a large popular base in
his home of Anbar, and they immediately began protesting. This quickly spread
to other areas across Ninewa, Salahaddin, Diyala, Tamim, and Baghdad. The
demonstrations eventually turned not only sectarian with constant rhetoric
about Shiites being Persians, waiving Saddam era flags, and accusations of
militias being behind all the violence in the country, but some sites became
connected to the insurgency such as Hawija, which was run by the Baathist
Naqshibandi group. Baghdad offered some concessions to the protestors such
as passing an amnesty law and changing deBaathification, but Shiite and Sunni
parties held them up either because they did not support the reforms or
did not want to hand Maliki any victories before the 2014 parliamentary
elections. Then the government made a major misstep by ordering the raid upon
the Hawija site, and ended up using excessive force. That allowed the militants
to argue that Baghdad was not interested in negotiations, and would eventually smash
all of the demonstrations. This successfully convinced many to turn to force as
not only Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Naqshibandi, and other insurgent groups carried
out retaliatory attacks following Hawija, but so did tribes. That was the
culmination of all the political and military missteps that occurred after
2009. Again, the government appeared to not care about the demands of Sunnis.
Federalism for example, has never been a popular topic with Sunnis, yet they
saw Maliki’s clamp down on Anbar and the other provinces as another example of
him using extra judicial means to ignore their plight. By the time the arrest
warrants came down for Issawi’s men, many Sunnis had enough, and took their
frustration out into the streets. The government’s mishandling of that
situation led some protesters to turn away from peaceful means, and provided
the opportunity the insurgency was looking for to garner more followers.

Today’s rising levels of violence
were the result of specific political moves and mistakes made by the central
government and Prime Minister Maliki, along with the American withdrawal. Just
a few years ago, the premier had completely changed his image from a sectarian
Shiite ruler to an Arab nationalist one. Then he gave that up when he felt
threatened by his rivals. Now Sunnis believe that their national leaders have
either been discredited like Allawi or are persecuted like Issawi, and that the
Shiite parties will do anything to hold onto office. To add to that, the U.S.
military pulling out of Iraq deprived the country of resources, and direction
that left the security forces incapable of dealing with the insurgency. Iraq’s
security situation only stabilized when political breakthroughs were made such
as the 2009 elections. Those same types of changes are necessary today.
Unfortunately, the parties are only thinking short-term, and trying to position
themselves for the 2014 vote. They are therefore unwilling to compromise or
make any deals right now, which was already difficult when violence was down. That
means sectarian tensions will continue, as there is a lack of national dialogue
that could bring groups together, and draw people away from backing the
insurgency. The result is that Iraq will get a lot worse, before anything gets
better.

FOOTNOTES

1. Dar Addustour, “Officers
are busy imposing royalties to the owners of restaurants and garages and
amusements – suffers a lack of funding intelligence information ..and most of
its leaders are linked to third-hostile,” 3/19/13

SOURCES

Al-Ali, Zaid, “Iraqi regionalism and its discontents,” Open
Democracy, 12/3/11

Dar Addustour, “Officers are busy imposing royalties to the
owners of restaurants and garages and amusements – suffers a lack of funding
intelligence information ..and most of its leaders are linked to
third-hostile,” 3/19/13

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Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com